Bio: While a home economics teacher, Nancy Ellison took her first weaving class while spending a summer in Norway in 1968. She returned to Norway in 2005 with a textile tour from Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum. She has also taken classes at Vesterheim taught by weavers from Norway. She has been at Ellison Sheep Farm near Zumbrota, Minnesota since 1996 and has taught spinning, weaving, and felting and sells new, used, and antique spinning wheels and looms.

Description: Through the years I had admired weaving I saw in old Swedish Väv magazines that included figures of people, animals, trees, etc. woven in bound rosepath. Three harness krokbragd had been a favorite weave I enjoyed doing and I thought perhaps I could design some krokbragd patterns with figures and came up with this weaving. The figures start with gray tombstones which you have to look for as they don’t show up well on the green background. Then there are pastors in black suits and white collars, fences, sheep, blond girls in skirts, farmers in overalls and hats, etc. Titled “The Sheep Pasture,” it was first entered in the folk art exhibit at Vesterheim in Decorah in 2012 where it was awarded an honorable mention ribbon. Later it was shown at other events such as with shows of the Scandinavian Weavers Group. Sometimes the title was tweaked to “Pasture by the Cemetary”, “Pastors by the Pasture”, etc. In recent years other people have published patterns of krokbragd figures, especially sheep and fences, but I did it independently years earlier.

Regarding the Scandinavian Weavers Group: I joined the Weavers Guild of Minnesota and the Scandinavian Weavers Group over 30 years ago while my Aunt Marie Nodland was still living, as she had been a long time member who had joined in the early years of the guild. I feel like a link in the chain carrying on the tradition of Scandinavian weaving and am always happy to share information with others and enjoy the exchange of ideas at meetings. I haven’t driven to meetings since before the pandemic but appreciate being able to attend the meetings virtually on Zoom.

ellisonsheep@gmail.com

Nancy’s woven pastors spread internationally! Read about how the charming pattern was taken up by weavers in England in “Woven Pastors in a Row – American and British.”